Kristin Ransom shows her signature on her election envelope to Rett Ertl at the drive-up ballot drop off at the Boulder County Clerk and Recorder's Office on Friday morning. (Paul Aiken / Staff Photographer)

Ballot drop-off information

The Boulder County Clerk and Recorder's Office's Elections Division will be staffing drive-by ballot drop-off locations from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday and from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday, Election Day. at these locations:

• Boulder: Outside the Boulder County Clerk and Recorder's main office, 1750 33rd St.

• Erie: Arapahoe Ridge Marketplace, Arapahoe Road and U.S. 287, although the county staff said people may have to exit their vehicles to hand off their ballots to election workers at that location.

• Longmont: The east side of the 500 block of Terry Street, behind the Boulder County Community Hub buildings.

• Louisville: Steinbaugh Pavilion, 824 Front St.

• Lyons: Lyons Town Hall, 432 Fifth Ave.

Nederland's Community Center, 750 N. Colo. Highway 72, has a Voter Service and Polling Center where people can walk in to deliver their completed ballots on Monday and Tuesday.

Locations of other Voter Service Centers where people can get replacement ballots, register to vote or change their registration information are available online at BoulderCountyVotes.org. People with questions can call the county Elections Division at 303-413-7740.

There is fear, and yes, there is loathing too.

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The late Hunter S. Thompson made his name in large part through his chronicling of the Richard Nixon-George McGovern battle in "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign trail '72." It's hard now, not to see the tone of that campaign as downright courtly, compared to the incendiary nature of the 2016 election cycle.

Whether it's the Republican insurgent Donald Trump or Democrat Hillary Clinton who prevails on Tuesday, few partisans on either side of a very wide divide challenge the notion that Americans alive today have never seen so fractious and contentious a presidential contest.

Jim Downs, a 69-year-old Lafayette Democrat and Clinton voter, has witnessed more than a few presidential campaigns.

"I can't think of anything comparable, where it seems like this election all revolves around personalities, more so than issues," said Downs, He said he is not "wildly enthusiastic" about Clinton, but views the first woman nominated for president by a major political party as "by far" the most qualified, and a much superior choice to her opponent.

As for the pervasive acrimony that stains this year's political battlefield, "I just don't recall it ever going this far, in this direction. I think that we have crossed a line," Downs said.

With Trump vowing to throw Clinton in jail over her use of a private email server while Secretary of State, and Clinton upping her attacks on Trump's character after he was exposed on an 11-year-old tape boasting about his ability to grope women at will, the line may not have just been breached. Many say it has been obliterated.

And there's fear that there's no going back to the relative civilities of campaigns past.

Peg Cage, chairman of the Boulder County Republicans, gave voice to the strange dynamics of the 2016 campaign this past week when she said of her party's nominee, "Trump is an egotistical, womanizing, opportunist and con man. But at this point, what difference does it make? Because that is the choice — you can have a president or you can have a dictator. So what difference does it make?"

The dictator envisioned in her rhetorical question is Clinton, who Cage sees as sure to trample the U.S. Constitution and grab more power for a centralized government. And, she argued, Trump's remarks on the notorious "Access Hollywood" tape that surfaced Oct. 7 can't be taken too much to heart.

"Donald Trump just realized the power that he had," Cage said. "He was surprised with the power that came with being rich, or running the pageant. He was saying, 'I can go and do this, just because I'm a movie star.' A lot of people think that, but they won't say that."

Cage attended a monthly breakfast meeting of Boulder County Republicans last Wednesday, and was encouraged by what she saw and heard there. It's not always easy to feel encouragement when your party's registered active voters are outnumbered in the county nearly three to one by Democrats, and by more than two to one by unaffiliated voters.

But Cage admitted anxiety — just as Downs did — over what Americans will wake up to the morning after Election Day.

"It will still be America, but what type of America will it be?" she said. "Will it be America that is a republic, where people get together and decide who they want to represent them in government? Or will it be an America where the government uses its power against the people, in order to plunder the people?

"Hillary is a symptom and so is Trump, and my greatest fear is that the people won't rise up and take back their country and that they'll do it wrong."

Cage, who will vote for Trump, cited the nation's tradition of what she called "civil, civil wars," in which transitions of power are accomplished peacefully through the ballot box and not through riots in the streets.

As a result, Cage said, "There is a brand new government. There is no blood in the street, no neighbor-against-neighbor violence. Praise the lord for heated arguments. That's what I'm hoping will happen this time."

Anxiety and anger

The fact that Cage couched her forecast for a peaceful transition as a "hope" is testimony to the unusual and uncertain terrain American politics currently inhabits.

Former longtime Boulder County Commissioner Josie Heath, a fervent Clinton supporter, remembers working on a democracy project in Bulgaria at the time of America's 1994 general election through a program associated with the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

The morning after that U.S. midterm election, Heath showed up to greet her European colleagues "feeling lower than a snake's belly" about the Democrats' loss of the House and Senate, and said, "Treat me kindly today, my party has just gotten killed in last night's election." Some of her horrified friends thought she meant it literally, and expressed concern for the safety of Heath's friends and family.

"And that drove home how we have taken for granted the peaceful transition of power," Heath said. "People have seen that as a sacred promise of democracy. If we do not have that this time, then everything is up for grabs. That is such an important promise of our democratic system."

Heath, a Clinton delegate to the Democratic Convention in July, doesn't dismiss the chasms that have split broad segments of American society.

"I just think there is a lot of anxiety and anger throughout our country right now and it's being reflected in this campaign," said Heath, president of Boulder County's Community Foundation. "I just think it transcends this election. I think the income spread, the fact that people are working really hard and feel like they're not getting ahead."

She sees the "base core of anger and political anxiety" as transcending party politics.

"I think the challenge for us as a nation, and frankly, for groups like the one I'm involved with at the local level, we need to think in January, how do we find common ground? How do we deal with root causes that make people feel like there's not a place for them in this country anymore?"

'Mitt Romney in drag'

The economic unease and sense on the part of many Americans that the system is rigged against all but a privileged 1 percent helped spark not only the surprising dawn of what has been labeled Trumpism, but also fueled the burn of passion for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who pushed Clinton all the way to the eve of the Democratic Convention before conceding.

Sanders, whose populist outsider's message inspired many leftist Democrats who dismiss Clinton as beholden to the monied power elite, has campaigned for her during the general election. But not all of his supporters are following his lead.

"I think Hillary Clinton is pretty much Mitt Romney in drag — and Donald Trump is just a disgusting human being," said Sanders supporter Jeff Chester, 42, of Boulder.

Chester, a registered Democrat, will not vote for anyone for president, despite what Sanders might have wished.

He is aware that there are those who would accuse him of helping to push the election results perhaps in an unintended direction, by withholding his vote.

"Maybe that's true," Chester said. "But at least, I don't want to sound like I have some moral superiority, but (by not voting), I don't feel like I have compromised my integrity, one way or the other as a voter."

Chester dismisses Sanders' plea for his fans to get behind the woman who vanquished him.

"I think that people on the left really have some examination to do. And we should all take a step back, and think about what we want, and try to develop a platform. And I think Bernie stepping back and having a sort of a dignified silence through all of this, that would have really provided space for that to happen," Chester said.

Jan Cone, a 67-year-old unincorporated Boulder County resident, became resigned by the time of the Democratic convention to casting her vote, reluctantly, for Clinton. And that's what she has now done.

"And, not as reluctantly as I thought would," Cone said. "I still have issues about her — especially the war, the hawkishness and her secrecy and lack of transparency.

"But in comparison with what we're faced with as the alternative, she's like a gazillion times better, in my opinion. I don't feel bad voting for her. I don't feel as bad as when Bernie was still in the running."

Another Sanders supporter, Louisville attorney Alan Rosenfeld, ultimately voted for Clinton. But he is promoting the work of a new group calling itself the Boulder County Progressive Coalition, which will back candidates it sees as truly progressive, not simply falling in behind whichever candidate might have a "D" after their name.

"If we sit on our hands and let the Democratic Party become the home to pro business Republicans, that will be our fault, not hers," Rosenfeld said in an email.

Prelude of things to come?

"There's got to be a morning after," or so the song promises. Campaign 2016 has created a lot of apprehension over what Wednesday, and the days beyond, will bring.

David Brown, a professor and chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Colorado, has given a lot of thought to this and other questions in recent weeks.

"There's two ways to look at the effects that this kind of election has on the United States — and the world, for that matter," Brown said. "One could look at it and say, people are going to be so darn tired of politics and politicians, that people are going to want to withdraw from politics and civic organizing and civic-mindedness is at peril."

However, Brown said, "The opposite thing can happen as well, and that's what I'm clinging to. In terms of what's happening on campus, our political science majors, students and others are certainly engaged in this election and realize how important thinking about it is. And a lot of things we take for granted, we shouldn't take for granted."

The lesson, according to the professor, is, "We need to pay attention to the basics — in understanding the system, understanding the civics involved, how we discuss things with other people and how we move forward."

That view is shared by Bradley Beck, an Erie resident and Trump supporter who organizes a monthly breakfast for Boulder County Republicans at a Longmont restaurant.

"Everybody is focused on the national scene, but Nov. 9, the sun is going to shine and we're all going to be here and hopefully, we're all going to be moving on to the next thing," Beck said. "Everybody gets focused on Washington, D.C., but freedom is not at the White House; it's at our house."

Trump was his fourth choice, after first backing Rand Paul, then Carly Fiorina and then Sen. Ted Cruz. To have candidates — and a government — that people can believe in, Beck said, the work starts at the grassroots level.

"I would challenge people: What are they going to do to take action? How are you going to get involved and make a difference? Join that Optimists Club. Work with the City Council. Get on a committee or board and challenge people's premises. Make them think," Beck said.

"It's really about freedom over force. I don't like to be forced to do anything, but if I can be persuaded to do something, I may come along."

Beck's faith in a brighter political tomorrow is not echoed across the political landscape.

"I sadly really don't think that this is going to pass," said Chester, the Boulder voter who is abstaining in voting for president.

"I think this is just a prelude of things to come, if anything," Chester said. "And, one of the reasons why I can't see myself voting for Hillary is that it's my view that maybe one of the worst things we can do right now, as a country, is maintain the status quo."

Brown, at CU, sees the rise of a media "industrial complex" embodied by the 24-hour-a-day messaging of Fox News and MSNBC as highlighting the nation's divisions.

"They help in each side developing a narrative that is comfortable and reaffirms people's beliefs," he said. "And I think that that's why you get people who are saying very, very different things and looking at each other and going, 'What planet are you on?' It's because we have different planets now, in what's going on, on the networks."

Heath has faith in the democratic process — even while looking back on a campaign many would love to forget.

"People have got to feeling anxious that things are changing and it's not going back, and this fuels the anxiety," Heath said. "First, we had a black man, and then we had a woman, and, where's this world going?

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